Researcher, Consultant & Non-Executive Director
This is the text of my introduction to a lively panel discussion at Wesley Mission, Sydney on 20 March 2014. The other panellists were former senior editor of The Australian, Nick Cater, NSW Treasurer, Mike Baird, and the Director of Social Business at the Centre for Social Impact, UNSW and former Federal MP, Cheryl Kernot. … Continue reading Is Australia the land of the 'Fair Go' for me but not for all?
On the 23rd November, on a storm-drenched afternoon, during a moment of sunshine, a few hundred people from Uniting Church congregations gathered at Circular Quay in Sydney to unveil a giant quilt in an act of public liturgy.
One of the risks for preachers in running with the lectionary for services of worship designed to address a special issue or theme is that the readings just don’t work.
I took this photograph of a photograph taken by Australian Rosemary Laing on display at the 2007 Venice Biennale. It is a shot of Woomera Detention Centre. My photo does not do it justice. It is a raw, cold and confronting image of Australian policies.
Every person who arrives by boat seeking asylum has a story. Over 90% of asylum seekers who have arrived by boat over the last 15 years or so have been granted protection, so you can be sure that these stories include tales of hardship, violence and persecution.
If there’s one thing that Bob Carr’s recent comments on asylum seekers demonstrated it was that our politicians think they can say anything they want about ‘boat people’ and not be held to account for the truth.
Acting Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, members of the Council, Staff of the University, Families and Friends of Graduates, and most importantly, Graduates, it is a great privilege to have been invited to give the Occasional Address at this graduation ceremony tonight.
It’s good to be preaching this morning but I wish I’d paid more attention to the readings for the day before I set the date with Andrew. My heart sank when I realised this was Transfiguration Sunday.
In all the outcry about the broad exemptions granted to faith-based organisations in the Government’s draft anti-discrimination legislation, the fact that there are some faith-based organisations that think differently about such matters has been largely overlooked.
In 2009 the Uniting Church in Australia adopted a statement called An Economy of Life: re-imagining human progress for a flourishing world. This statement describes the Church’s concern that our understandings of progress and wellbeing are now determined by a global economic system geared to the making of profit for a few at the expense … Continue reading 'Labour': not another commodity
Elenie Poulos PhD GAICD 